1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for producing nautical maps useful for recreational and fishing information. In particular the present invention describes the process for producing nautical maps that provide greater details of an area than available from government maps.
2. Related Information
Recreational fishing is a widely enjoyed sport. Through research the inventor obtains fishing locations, marina locations, boat ramp locations and other general and cartographic information for a selected fishing map area. In addition to those features the maps provide accurate cartographic information derived from government maps. The map can also have Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) numbers added to either choice fishing sites or various land marks which are shown on the maps. The government charts available, for example, from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are excellent and greatly appreciated documents which are graciously provided by the U.S. government and provide the basis for all useful non governmental charts. However, these charts are directed more to larger commercial vessels and not to sport fishing or recreational use.
Nautical recreational and fishing maps and charts usually contain a small scale chart of a general area and one or more large scale inserts of the entire small scale chart or selected areas of the small scale chart.
A small scale chart is one in which features are present in smaller size and less detail than on a large scale chart. The distinction between a xe2x80x9csmall scalexe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9clarge scalexe2x80x9d is relative. For example, ocean charts may have scales of 1:1,000,000 whereas charts of harbors, shoreline and the like may have scales of 1:40,000 or less. Thus in this example the ocean charts are small scale and the harbor, shoreline, etc. charts are large scale.
It is an advantage of the present invention that a process is provided that incorporates the benefits of the governmental navigation charts with other useful and beneficial information for fishermen and leisure boaters.
Briefly the present invention is a process for producing a map comprising: producing a bordered area; overlaying said bordered area with a first template map having nautical features thereon, a first scale and latitude and longitude lines at least every two minutes of angle; adjusting the size of said first template map to match the bordered area and incorporating said nautical features and said latitude and longitude lines into said bordered area to provide a master template map; overlaying said master template map with at least one large scale map having nautical features appearing on said first template map thereon and a second scale, said second scale being larger than first scale, adjusting the scale of said large scale map to match the latitude and longitude lines of said master template map and creating a product map comprising said master template map and said large scale map. By adjusting the scale of the large scale map to that of the template map brings both the small scale map of the master template map and the large scale map to the same scale on the product map.
In the process of making the new recreational maps of the present invention, it is often the case that the area to be covered by the product map, i.e., the bordered area is different from the first template map. In that case a second template map is used to cover the remaining area of the bordered area not covered by the first template map. The second template map may have the same scale or a different scale (larger or smaller) than the first template map. The second template map is applied to the bordered area in the same manner as the described above for the first template map. If necessary there may be additional template maps to cover bordered areas not covered by the first two. The resulting product map is thus a new map of different scale than the template map or maps, which may cover a different area than the template map(s) and having different indicia thereon than the template map(s).
Preferably Global Positioning Satellite numbers for sites and/or other indicia of features and objects, such as buoys, ship wrecks, oil platforms and the like are added to the master template map. These features and indicata may be added to either the small scale map or the large scale map(s) or both. A further embodiment comprises overlaying the master template map with at least one electronic aerial map by aligning geographic features of said electronic aerial map and said master template map.
In addition to these features, it is also preferred that the areas of map or off map areas are electronically inserted on the map. The inserts are xe2x80x9cblow-upsxe2x80x9d thus have a larger scale than the large scale map.
A preferred embodiment the process for producing a map comprising, in a computer operated program:
producing a bordered area;
overlaying said bordered area with a first electronic map having nautical features thereon, a first scale and latitude and longitude lines at least every two minutes of angle;
adjusting the size of said first electronic map to match the bordered area and incorporating said nautical features and said latitude and longitude lines into said bordered area to provide a master template map;
overlaying said master template map with at least one large scale electronic map having nautical features appearing on said first electronic map thereon and a second scale, said second scale being larger than first scale,
adjusting the scale of said large scale map to match the latitude and longitude lines of said master template map and
creating a product electronic map comprising said master template map and said large scale electronic map.
The electronic product map may be stored in any medium such as a hard drive, CD, or diskets and may be used electronically or used to print maps, preferably on water proof material. These maps in addition to providing useful cartographic information go beyond the utilitarian government charts to provide recreational information for fishing and diving.
The government maps which are used to provide the first map (small scale) have latitude and longitude markings only at every 10 minutes of angle or more, whereas the larger scale maps have them at every 2 minutes of angle or less, depending to some extent on how large the scale is. In a preferred embodiment the latitude and longitude markings are added to the small scale map to correspond to the latitude and longitude markings appearing on the largest scale electronic map incorporated into the product electronic map.
In the following example two computers are used for the production of the present map. It is not intended that this is in any way a limitation to the process. A single computer may be used for the entire process, however Apple Corporation Macintosh computers are presently particularly adapted to graphics while PC dos operating computers using xe2x80x9cWindowsxe2x80x9d (Microsoft Corporation) currently have available a greater variety of mathematical programs.